Arkansas Obit Update

I posted last week about an Arkansas newspaper that refused to publish the name of a deceased man’s surviving partner unless they were paid $85 (they print the names of surviving spouses for free). In the post, I criticized GLAAD for paying the $85 fee and getting only a vague promise that the newspaper would revise its obituary policy to avoid this problem in the future.

Well, it appears that the newspaper reneged on even its vague promise. From The Advocate:

GLAAD officials said they had received assurances from the paper last week that it would rerun the obit, revise its policy, and apologize to James, but instead it published an editorial saying the paper had made its policy clear to him — it does not run names of unmarried partners in obits — and accusing James of lying and pursuing an “agenda.”

Now, GLAAD and HRC have put together petitions to get the newspaper to reverse course. The petitions can be found here (for GLAAD) and here (for HRC).